The Quickest Reality-Check You Will Ever Take

The smart people have this way of letting you know they're in touch with reality. These are the no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners kind who look down on both the fuzzy-brained professorial class and the blue-collared peon class alike. They insist they've been to the front and know what's happening.

You may have your doubts about them. I know I do. However, there is one simple reality-check you can take for yourself. Buy a couple out-of-town newspapers. Now take this quick two part test:

* Scan the front page and notice virtually the exact same stories you're reading in your morning paper back home. Gang killings on church steps..school closings in poor section of town...graft in the mayor's office...bribery in the mayor's...multiple-car accident during rush hour...another apartment building fire from a defective wall-heater. Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Omaha or Muddy Flats. Same stories! same news! same reporting! only the names are different!

* Now scan the sports page and notice the same remarkable thing. These guys simply re-cycle the very same grousing. Quarterback not worth his salary ...defense line too old to get the job done...where are the picks....why can't the basketball team ever survive the last quarter....when is this coach getting the axe. Say what...? Say it's darn near the same things you're reading and grousing about back home..

Is there a lesson here? Maybe. Shuffle the cities, shuffle the reporters, shuffle the editors. But brother, you can't shuffle human nature. We're all so damn much alike it's almost boring. [Or if older, almost reassuring]. When you get right down to reporting, the news hasn't changed much since Cain killed Abel, Noah got lost, Moses disobeyed Pharaoh and Donald Trump demanded that birth certificate.

If there is a God and if we're his television sitcom, he/she/it must like their laughs all the same!

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Meet The Blogger

Jack Spatafora

40 years educator/writer/intellectual vagabond...speech writer for the White House and Fortune 500 CEOs...regular contributor to the op-ed pages of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Pioneer Press, New World...teleplays and documentaries on PBS, ABC and NBC... 50-year colleague of Bob Newhart and 60 year spouse of Chicago actress Joan Spatafora...who is by far prettier than Bob!